house of commons

thenextweb.com

As Britain’s economy enters a ‘double-dip’ recession (much to the dismay of its citizens), the Palace of Westminster has agreed to provide 650 members of parliament with iPads, replacing their old laptops at a cost of at least £260,000 (around $420,000) to the taxpayer. iPads will only be provided to...

www.guardian.co.uk

Websites could have to pay exemplary damages if they don't sign up to new regulator, claim opponents of the Leveson dealBloggers could face high fines for libel under the new Leveson deal with exemplary damages imposed if they don't sign up to the new regulator, it was claimed on Tuesday.Kirsty...

www.guardian.co.uk

Spending on science through individual government departments fell 7.6% in first year of parliament, figures showPublic spending on science and innovation has fallen even faster than feared, despite a firm government pledge to protect spending in this area.The coalition had promised to protect just three areas of spending amid the...

www.guardian.co.uk

Attempts to link last year's Norway shootings to Call of Duty are spectacularly misguided. Moral panic about violent video games is based on prejudice, ignorance and the selective use of flawed researchOn June 6th, 1984, the Russian video game Tetris was released, in which players had to build a wall....

www.guardian.co.uk

The Queen's speech was packed with bills and government aspirations. Get the full list - and see how it breaks down• Get the data• Data journalism and data visualisations from the GuardianThe Queen's Speech is the closest the UK has to the US State of the Union speech. It's where...

www.guardian.co.uk

Victims of anonymous trolls on Twitter and other social media may soon have the power to discover their tormentors' identities, thanks to a new law. But what's the difference between a troll and somebody who just has very bad manners?I'm sitting waiting for the House of Commons to start debating...

www.techdirt.com

You may recall that Canadian Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews announced Canada's "lawful access" (read: government monitoring of the internet) bill by saying that if you weren't in favor of the bill, you supported child porn. Over the weekend, he also seemed to admit that he didn't even understand...

gigaom.com

Should the web be censored to protect individual privacy? What about to protect society at large? In America the answer is usually very simple: free speech trumps all. But the situation in Europe is far more complex, as two examples in the news right now show. On Tuesday a British...

www.guardian.co.uk

It's not a vote-winner and it won't make me popular, but social tenants need free internet accessNot everything said in the House of Commons meets with popular acclaim. So when I recently asked the work and pensions secretary to look at making broadband available to social housing tenants at low...

www.guardian.co.uk

Theresa May says she will not review case that could see Sheffield student facing 10 years in US jailThe home secretary, Theresa May, has told the House of Commons that she will not revisit plans to extradite Sheffield Hallam student Richard O'Dwyer to the US on copyright charges, saying the...

thenextweb.com

It’s taken time for defamation to go digital it seems. The UK’s defamation laws are more comfortably set in times for print and television than they are suited to the fast pace and activity we see online. A defamation bill [PDF] is to be debated in the House of Commons...

www.fastcompany.com

The speaker's wife, not known for being shy and reserved on Twitter, are to be sued by the man wrongly outed as a pedophile by the BBC and Twitter users. Lawyers for Lord McAlpine, the man wrongly accused of being a child abuser by the BBC, is to sue...

paidcontent.org

Manchester United football club is demanding that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) bar all Android apps that contain its logo. The soccer club sent an infringement notice to Google in February to request it remove from Android Market (now called Google Play) apps that contain its famous crest. Many apps on...

www.guardian.co.uk

We chat to Tory MP Justin Tomlinson and TIGA CEO Richard Wilson about the chances of games industry support in this week's budgetRichard Wilson is feeling optimistic. Again. The CEO of video game industry trade body, Tiga, has spent the last three years lobbying parliament for tax credits and other...

www.guardian.co.uk

Labour leader mocks chancellor in opposition response to budget claiming Britons are worse off after string of broken political promises and missed fiscal targetsEd Miliband condemned George Osborne on Wednesday as a "downgraded chancellor", saying the country is now "worse off" than when the coalition was formed nearly three years...

www.guardian.co.uk

The UK has no coherent innovation policy, so maybe we have to think more about where our pensions and savings are investedIt's official - the UK has no coherent innovation policy, according to the cross-party House of Commons science and technology committee, in the latest report to describe the UK's...

9to5google.com

Google’s Eric Schmidt appears to be continuing his media tour in New York this week. Yesterday, we posted a video of Schmidt sitting down one on one with The Economist’s Daniel Franklin, but today several UK publications are reporting on comments made by the Google Chairman at another one of...

Comments on 'Schmidt: We are very proud of our tax avoidance structure, "It's called capitalism"':

www.guardian.co.uk

Nicholas Scales sent Stuart Andrew the email after the MP was headbutted by a Labour rival in a Westminster barA man who abused a Tory MP in a crude email after the politician was headbutted by a rival at Westminster was fined £110 and ordered to pay £100 costs yesterday....

www.techdirt.com

The clause-by-clause review of Bill C-11, Canada's new copyright legislation, has concluded. Michael Geist tirelessly live-Tweeted the committee discussion, and as it progressed one thing became clear: Canada is almost certainly going to be saddled with a DMCA-style anti-circumvention law (more commonly referred to here as the "digital locks" law)...

www.bgr.com

Anonymous trolls in the United Kingdom may have to think twice before calling someone a “n00b” or “teh sux0r” online. That’s because the U.K. House of Commons this week will start a debate on reforms to British libel law that will provide incentives for Internet Service Providers to reveal...

Comments on 'British libel reforms push ISPs to out Internet trolls':

www.electronista.com

Thanks to the successful conclusion of a pilot program studying the effect of tablet computers in government, all 650 members of British parliament (MP) will soon be receiving iPads. The move was previously revealed by an advisory committee to the House of Commons. The move is expected to cost between...

paidcontent.org

Pretty soon, there may be nothing left for James Murdoch to distance himself from. Ahead of a parliamentary report on phone hacking that reportedly may accuse him of “lying”, now he is resigning his chairmanship of the UK’s largest pay-TV operator, BSkyB, saying: “As attention continues to be paid to...

www.electronista.com

A commission in the House of Commons in the UK will be deciding soon if all Ministers of Parliament (MPs) receive an iPad, reports the BBC. The Administration Committee believes that the device, even above other competing tablets, could save British taxpayers money despite the cost of providing all 650...

www.guardian.co.uk

Andrew Strauss's men should dispatch West Indies but preserving their No1 status will hinge on the Tests against South Africa as another rebuilding process beginsAndrew Strauss will be reacquainted with the ICC mace on Wednesday, that which bears a passing resemblance to the one lying between the leaders of the...

www.readwriteweb.com

It was just over a week ago that the Canadian government was preparing to table its new Internet surveillance legislation. For the Conservatives, it was supposed to be a very good week. Tough posturing on crime has been a vote-winner for them in the past, and the only people who...

www.guardian.co.uk

Comedian Alan Davies and the Guardian's George Monbiot also in defamed McAlpine's sightsSally Bercow, the wife of the speaker of the House of Commons, comedian Alan Davies and Guardian columnist George Monbiot are among twenty "high profile Tweeters" from whom Lord McAlpine is seeking libel damages over incorrect and defamatory...

techcrunch.com

The UK’s House of Lords has summoned senior figures from Facebook and Google in their ongoing investigation into media convergence, media power and how this should be regulated in the future. The Communications Committee, which is leading the investigation, will be meeting Simon Milner, policy director at Facebook, and Sarah...

www.pcworld.com

Hacker collective Anonymous is planning worldwide protests against government surveillance systems. Monday's targets include TrapWire and INDECT, which the shadowy group says track and profile citizens. Protesters in Canada may get into trouble for wearing the Guy Fawkes masks they're known for if a protest escalates to a riot....

www.techdirt.com

A common feature of democracies is that new laws are scrutinized and debated by representatives of the people before they are passed -- the hope being that bad proposals can be amended or discarded. Laws giving governments the power to change other laws with only minimal oversight are therefore generally...